


We Have Built No Temple

by PVB



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, Capitol Hill AU, M/M, Senator/Tour Guide, The Capitol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-11-02 04:21:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20620250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PVB/pseuds/PVB
Summary: Keith is a freshman Senator from Texas, Lance is a US Capitol Tour Guide, and Washington is on fire."There are a number of things wrong with Washington. One of them is that everyone is too far from home." - Dwight Eisenhower





	We Have Built No Temple

“We have built no national temples but the Capitol; we consult no common oracle but the Constitution.”

-Rufus Choate, Representative from Massachusetts, 1833

New York Times, January 8th: _Keith Kogane Takes Lead in Polls: Poses Credible Threat to Conservative Oil Lobbyist_

Buzzfeed News, February 4th: _Keith Kogane is a Gay Korean-American Orphan, and He Actually Has a Shot at Winning a Texas Senate Seat: What This Means for a Changing American Electorate_

Dallas Morning News, March 4th: _Breaking: Keith Kogane Wins Democratic Primary in Tightest Race Texas Has Seen in Years_

Wall Street Journal, September 12th: _Kogane: “Washington Needs More People Who Look Like Me”_

New York Times, November 3rd: _Live Updates from Texas Senate Race: Kogane Lags Behind in Polls; Must Take Some Conservative Counties to Win_

AP, November 3rd: _Breaking: Keith Kogane Wins Texas Senate Seat in Stunning Upset; Headed to Washington in January, First Democratic Senator from Texas in Thirty Years_

Keith is so fucking lost.

He’s got a caucus in ten minutes and he’s in a corner of the Capitol that he’s never seen before. He doesn’t know who fucking designed this building, but it’s dumb and he has no idea how anybody gets around here. He could call his chief of staff, Rizavi, but she’d laugh at him and probably leak this on Twitter because it’s funny and she’s always going on about how they need to ‘appeal to the youth with humor,’ and it’s literally his second week in Washington and he doesn’t _need_ this.

Sweat is leaking through his button down and he's so embarrassed, and he almost slips as he hustles down a marble staircase because his shoes are brand-new and a little too big. _I’m going to be late_, he thinks. _I’m going to be late for a caucus meeting and they’re going to kick me out. I will be the first person impeached in the Senate for sheer stupidity._

Interns and staffers and police officers all nod at him as he hustles down the hall, and he nods back and tries to figure out if it’s obvious he’s going to sweat through his shirt. The hallways are gorgeous, with painted vaulted ceilings and busts of famous American politicians who never got lost in the Capitol, and Keith can’t appreciate any of them. What if he doesn’t get a committee assignment? Would they do that? They would. He won’t get a committee assignment and he won’t be able to _do_ anything and his career will be over just as it’s getting started.

He sees a flash of garish red out of the corner of his eye, and it stands out so starkly that he whips his head around to follow. It’s a guy, dark skin and dark hair and a bright red jacket, a black tie with yellow stars. He’s flicking through his phone, a tiny grin on his face, totally unconcerned with what’s happening around him.

_He’s a tour guide,_ Keith says, remembering hearing this from orientation. _Red jacket means he’s a Capitol tour guide. That means – shit – _

“Hey,” he says, way too loudly, and the guy startles. “Excuse me.”

The guide’s eyes are huge as he looks up, and he quickly stuffs his phone in his pants pocket. “Yes, sir?”

“Hi,” Keith says, uselessly. “I need – can you tell me how to get to my meeting?”

The guide’s face morphs into something like amusement, and Keith shoves one of his papers at him. “It’s this room?”

The guide takes one look at the room number and grins. “Sir, that’s all the way down in the Visitor Center. That’s not in the Capitol at all.”

Keith could _die_. “Oh,” he says, trying to keep his voice even as blush creeps up his neck. “Well, can you – “

“Yeah, absolutely, follow me,” the guide says, and he makes a pivot turn and starts back off down the hallway at an impressive clip, forcing Keith to half-jog to catch up. “They didn’t cover this in orientation?”

“They did, but there was a lot of information,” Keith admits. “I didn’t remember.”

The guide smiles, makes a quick right-hand turn. “Don’t worry, you’re not crazy. We had a whole month of orientation and one day was dedicated solely to getting lost and seeing if we could find our way back. I made it all the way to a House Rules meeting before the police turned me around.”

Keith quirks a smile, which he didn’t think he was capable of right now. The guide takes him to an elevator with the official seal of the United States Senate. “This is the Senators Only Elevator, so I can’t follow you, but take this all the way down as far as it’ll go. Hang a right when you get off, past the double doors, your room should be on the left.”

“Down, right, double doors, left,” Keith recites. “This is – this is so helpful, thank you, uh…” He looks down at the brass nameplate on his chest. _L. McClain. _“Mr. McClain.”

“Lance, please,” he says, pressing the elevator button. His smile is stunning; it’s easy, loose, genuine. Keith’s seen a lot of smiles since he got to Washington, and every one felt like a shark smiling at a minnow. This tour guide might be the first person he’s met here who doesn’t want anything from him. “The pleasure was all mine, Senator.”

Keith shakes his hand and gives him a real smile, not the garbage campaign smile he’s been giving for the past year. “Have a great day.”

“Will do,” Lance says, with an awful dorky salute. Keith gets on the elevator and takes it all the way down, and the room is just where Lance said it would be.

“Senator Kogane,” says Minority Leader Shirogane when Keith walks in. “We were starting to think you were lost!”

“I was,” Keith says, and it startles a laugh out of the senators. He takes a seat next to the senator from Ohio and smiles. “Ready to get started?”

“Let’s do it,” Shirogane says, and Keith opens up his folder.

* * *

Washington is nothing like he thought and everything like he thought; for every moment he’s pleasantly surprised by something running efficiently, he’s completely let down by an inane reason for a bill getting killed or another call by a constituent that he can do nothing about. He’s dreamed about this city his whole life, and now he’s here and he’s trying to do some good, and some days it feels like he’s destined to become another politician who gets here and immediately sells out.

He’s not supposed to be a politician at all, really; that’s a part of his whole narrative, something that James Griffin, his communications director, is always putting a lot of emphasis on. ‘Political Outsider.’ ‘Not Bought Out Like the Rest of Them.’ His differences are what gave him a good narrative in the first place: gay, Korean, orphan, the identities that sometimes feel more like bullet points in a liberal checklist than anything he truly lives anymore. When he first got involved in local politics back in Texas, it was out of anger more than anything. He ran for school board because of bullying he experienced as a teenager; he ran for Austin city council because he hated the lack of funding for community spaces and welfare programs; he ran for state representative because the more he saw of Texas politics the more he knew that there were _so many _people like him, so many people who were liberal _and _Texans, people who hated big oil and racist cattle ranchers and wanted to make Texas a better place for immigrants and refugees, people who still wore cowboy boots and hung out at honky-tonks and didn’t see a problem with being a liberal Southerner. He never expected to win any of those races, because frankly he’s a campaign nightmare: he hates talking to people, he’s a terrible fundraiser, he can’t stand debates and has never been good at courting big-ticket endorsements. But he was always himself. He called it like he saw it, tried to never lie to the people he was trying to help, told them that he might not be able to solve all of their problems but he sure as fuck was gonna try.

So he started winning. Part of his success he attributes to his team, a couple of scrappy assholes like him that he picked up somewhere around his first Austin election that have stayed with him ever since. Nadia Rizavi is his chief of staff, his right-hand man; she’s got the brain for schmoozing that he never picked up, and she keeps his head above water and his eye on the prize. Ina Leifsdottir and Ryan Kinkade are his legislative directors, and they help him fine-tune legislation and navigate the dumpster fire that is passing bills. James Griffin sells him; his spin makes Keith Kogane, reclusive asshole, into Keith Kogane, political bruiser who’s here to fight for the people of Texas. And when Keith came to them with a batshit plan to run for old racist asshole Sanda’s senate seat, they didn’t even blink before starting his campaign.

And now they’re all in Washington, with a big new office and wide-eyed interns and a mountain of work to do. The GOP has controlled both houses since the president’s re-election two years ago, and the Dems have their work cut out for them trying to stop the most conservative legislative agenda that’s been seen in ten years. The current GOP bugaboo is an atrocious omnibus bill, S-76, also called the Plan for America. It’s a clusterfuck of everything Keith stands against; it tightens immigration numbers and practically bottlenecks the refugee application process, it slashes welfare and school lunch programs and diverts the money to unnecessary defense spending, it punishes underperforming schools instead of giving them opportunities to succeed and it even cuts funding for health clinics in low-income communities that desperately need the care. The president, a moderate Republican who lost the Christian right in his last election, is going to sign it to try and recoup them, and it’s an easy pass in the House once it clears the Senate. Keith hates it with a vitriol, and he has no idea how to stop it.

But he’s not alone, and he’s found himself working alongside a rockstar Democratic leadership. People whose careers he’s followed since he was in high school are suddenly his _colleagues_. The Minority Leader, Takashi Shirogane (D-NY), has been an inspiration to Keith, who followed his career as the openly gay deputy mayor of New York City while Keith was a closeted nerd on the Young Democrats. He’s got a little more gray in his hair and a couple more crow’s feet than Keith remembers, but he’s just as smart and tenacious as the papers make him seem, and he steers then with a steady hand, quietly persevering even as the odds stack against them. The Minority Whip is Allura Altea (D-CT), the true face of the party – a beautiful Oxford-educated African-American with a gift for oratory and the ability to fundraise like nobody’s business. She’s a marvel to watch on the floor; her job is to know the ins and outs of the Democratic party, to figure out who’s voting how, to maintain party loyalty and try to get them in lockstep. Keith’s been terrified of her ever since he heard her threaten Senator Nyma Hollen (D-RI) that her pet project campaign finance reform bill would never see the light of day if she didn’t get over her bullshit objections and vote yes on the floor bill. It was one of the scariest sights Keith has ever witnessed, and she did it in heels.

Allura’s deputy is Katherine Holt (D-CA), who won’t answer to anything but Pidge. She’s been one of Keith’s favorite politicians ever since she called her opponent a ‘racist fuckweasel’ in her primaries, and _still _won because California voters are crazy. She’s terrible for optics but a brilliant strategist, and she knows every section and subsection of Senate rules and how to bend them to the party’s desires. The other great diplomat on leadership is Hunk Garrett (D-HI), the influential ranking member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. He’s been Shiro’s best friend in the Senate for years and years; he’s one of their best negotiators, and he can work within committees to kill bills or pass them, all while somehow being one of the best-liked people on the Hill. Keith is so grateful for him; he’s always got macadamia nut cookies in his office, and he once listened to Keith rant for an hour when he was about ready to tear his hair out from frustration.

These are his people; these are his soldiers, these are his ride-or-die. They’ve all got different platforms, different areas of expertise, different constituents and different backgrounds and different needs. But they’ve got one thing in common: they want to do what they think is best for the American people, and so even when they hate their jobs, they’re in it because they genuinely think this is the best way to make change.

It’s infuriating. It’s frustrating. It’s bullshit. It’s exhilarating. It’s depressing and euphoric and complicated and miserable and powerful.

It’s Washington.

* * *

“Sir, don’t run away after the floor vote today,” Griffin says.

Keith pauses as he’s tying his tie in Rizavi’s mirror. “Run away?”

“Run away,” Griffin repeats. “Don’t do it. Once the vote’s done then walk out past the leader’s office and through the photographers. I need a new picture of you.”

Keith’s grinding his teeth before Griffin’s even done talking. “I don’t run away.”

“Oh my _God_,” Rizavi says, even though she’s literally on the phone with donors.

“Yes? You do? Duh?” Griffin says. He also isn’t looking up from his phone. Keith needs more respectful staff. “You’re afraid of cameras and getting you to do an interview is like pulling teeth. But I’m asking you nicely, sir, because I don’t have any new pictures of you and I’m gearing up for a big Twitter push about your school lunch bill so I need material. My guy from WaPo says he’ll be there, and if he’s there that means AP’s gonna be there, so I’ve got lots of choices when I’m picking the picture where you’re scowling the least.”

Keith sighs, finishes tying his tie. He hated tying ties as a kid; now he can do it in his sleep. Full Windsor, of course, because he’s not a punk. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t care what you say. Your normal spiel about how the current bill is lying to the American people. The picture’s what I need.”

Keith finishes, straightens out his cufflinks, grabs his briefcase. “Got it.”

The floor vote goes exactly as expected; the Dems don’t have enough votes to stop anything, and even though S-108 is far from the worst evil that’s been pushed through this year, it still makes Keith irrationally angry. He all but storms out of the chamber and can’t quite mold his face into anything less pissed for the sea of photographers that are waiting, as expected, outside the chamber. Now Griffin’s gonna yell at him because he looks like he was sucking on a lemon. Just great.

He hears a loud, lilting voice telling a story down the hall, and he stops. It sounds vaguely familiar.

He keeps on walking, past the photogs who keep clicking away, and comes upon the Old Senate Chamber, the one used before the current one was built…sometime in the late 1800s? He thinks? He was really bad at history; he took his swearing-in photo in this room and hasn’t been back since. But suddenly he finds himself peeking in, walking hesitantly into the room. It’s lush and beautiful, heavy red drapery and red carpets and an intimidating portrait of George Washington above a gilded gold eagle. There’s a family with small children, who are listening enraptured as a certain dark-haired tour guide tells an elaborate story with lots of hand gestures.

Keith’s heart skips. It’s Lance.

Lance’s eyes look over and find his, and suddenly he’s pausing and standing quickly to his feet. “Senator, hello.”

The family looks over and gasps. Keith’s face flushes.

“Sorry, keep going,” he says. “I was just down the hall and heard you talking and…yeah. Was just curious.”

Lance’s eyes are big. “Have you ever heard the story of the caning of Charles Sumner, sir?”

“Probably, once,” Keith says, and that startles a laugh out of the dad for no good reason. Lance smiles.

“Well, we were just at the most dramatic part. It was in this very room, May 22, 1856. Preston Brooks, a young representative from South Carolina, had walked right across the Rotunda and into this room. He was defending the honor of his relative, the senator from South Carolina, who had been viciously attacked in an anti-slavery speech by Charles Sumner, the leading abolitionist from Massachusetts.”

Keith leans against the railing, hands stuffed in his pockets. He can feel the click of the cameras behind him, but he doesn’t move.

“So Preston Brooks walks right up this aisle, and walks over to Sumner, who is sitting at that very desk doing work.” Lance points to a desk in the back corner, marked out with a book sitting on it. “And he demands an apology from Sumner, and when none comes, he takes his cane and beats him with it – so hard, in fact, that in his struggle to get free, Sumner ripped the desk up from the bolts that held it in the ground and crawled on the ground to get away.”

The little kids are wide-eyed. Keith’s enjoying himself too – Lance is a natural storyteller, pausing in all the right places.

“Sumner didn’t die, but he did stay away from the Senate for three years. When he came back, he was still just as ardently antislavery as he had ever been. It’s a good reminder,” he says, and flicks his eyes briefly to Keith, “that there have always been people in this country who are willing to do what’s right, and who will fight for the rights of people who don’t have a voice.”

The family bursts into applause, which Keith joins in on. Lance does a mocking bow in his red jacket. The photographers are leaning in now, taking pictures in the room and everyone in it.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, Senator,” Lance says with a grin. “I’ve told that story twelve million times but that had to be my best audience.”

“You’re a Senator?” says the little boy to Keith, and doesn’t even wait for an answer before he’s continuing, “Have you ever been beaten with a cane?”

His mother looks mortified but Keith grins. “No, fortunately Senators aren’t that violent anymore. We yell at each other with our words now.”

“This would’ve been Senator Kogane’s office,” Lance says. “Back in the day. Senators didn’t have offices and staff like they did now, they just had these little tiny desks to do all their work! Does that seem like enough room?”

The kids shake their heads. “There’s no bed to lay down if he gets tired!” The girl says.

“That’s not a bad idea, having a bed in my office,” Keith says. “I like naps.”

That’s probably not a good thing to say to random visitors, but it gets him a laugh. “Where are you guys from?” Lance asks.

“Texas, actually,” the mom says. She’s looking star-struck at Keith, which is a good sign; either she voted for him, or she didn’t vote for him but still thinks he’s cool. Either way, he can work with this. “It’s really such a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“You too,” Keith says, and some of Rizavi’s lectures on ‘people skills’ must be wearing off on him because he’s got an idea. “You guys have plans right now? I’m heading back to the office and I’d love to show you around. You could help me decide where to put the bed.”

The little kids cheer and the parents look completely floored. Cameras click incessantly and when Keith looks up at Lance, he’s got a brilliant smile. He nods, a weird kind of thank you for facilitating the best constituent interaction he’s had in years, and Lance just nods back. Their own little secret code.

As he walks the family back out and starts to engage the parents in small talk, he pulls out his phone to send a quick text to Griffin.

_You’re gonna love this._

* * *

After that, Keith starts seeing Lance more often. The Capitol’s a big place but the tour guides are inescapable, leading elderly church groups and hordes of bored eighth graders in matching t-shirts through the Rotunda. Lance appears to be one of the most popular. He gesticulates with every story and he keeps his groups laughing almost constantly. One time Keith saw him get a whole class of eighth graders to act out one of the Rotunda paintings, with a very short girl giving the best Washington impression Keith’s ever seen. Pidge cracked up when she saw it, and it brought a smile to Keith’s face after a long and bullshit caucus meeting.

When he gets his first crop of interns, one of whose primary responsibilities is giving visiting constituents private tours of the Capitol, Rizavi tells him that he can send them to an official tour training by the Capitol guides or they can just do training in-office. Keith replies that he’s pretty sure none of them know the Capitol better than the guides, so he sends them to the official training. Turns out to be one of the best decisions he’s ever made; constituents are obsessed with his interns’ tours, and he never gets complaints about historical inaccuracy like some of the other offices do.

“Honestly, they do a really good job of training us,” says one of them as she’s hole punching a forest’s worth of data. “They told this insane story of this guy who got beaten up in the Old Senate Chamber, it was so wild.”

Keith grins. “It is a good story, isn’t it.”

He grins at Lance whenever he sees him, and Lance isn’t as jumpy as he used to be. One time Keith nods as he passes through the Rotunda, and Lance says into his mic, “Everyone wave to the nice Senator from Texas!” The whole tour waves at Keith, who waves back, totally stunned. He’s never been the ‘nice senator’ before; it’s a lovely change of pace.

He starts looking for Lance whenever he’s in the public spaces, seeing a broad back underneath a red jacket and getting disappointed whenever it’s not Lance. There’s a word for this, and frankly he’s too busy to even entertain the notion. So he shoves it down real deep.

It’s all in a day’s work.

* * *

The things Keith hates about Washington could fill a novel. The always-late metro system. The lack of good barbecue. How the city gets overrun with eighth graders as soon as the Cherry Blossom Festival hits. Inside the Capitol, he hates sleazy staff members, broken coffee machines, stuck-up Representatives who act like a dick in conference committee as he’s trying to pass bipartisan legislation.

But none of this compares to how much he hates his fellow senator from Texas. His name is Ranveig and he’s a dick. He’s been a dick for so long that he’s reinvented what the word ‘dick’ means. He called Keith a ‘chink’ during his primary and Keith’s never forgiven him for it. That whole fiasco was one of Griffin’s most brilliant moves; he got Keith a spot on Meet the Press and coached him in a calm renunciation of racism, an education on the difference between Chinese and Korean cultures, and a beautiful call-out to voters to think hard about what kind of American they want to vote for. Keith credits that move with winning him the primary. Since coming to Washington, he and Ranveig have voted separately on every single bill that’s come up on the floor. Plenty of states have split senators; not many other states have senators who actively hate each other as much as Keith and Ranveig do.

The other problem is that Ranveig is a fucking _idiot_. He has no touch for politics, introduces bullshit legislation that’s full of holes, and promises constituents things that no government could ever provide unless they were in a full-on dictatorship. Keith can acknowledge and admire the political skill and acumen of some of the other members of the GOP: the Majority Leader Scott Sendak (R-VA) is an old-school hardass with a secret gift for Nixon-style realpolitik, and the Majority Whip, Alexander Lotor (R-SC), is one of Keith’s greatest enemies are on the Hill. He’s clearly biding his time until all of the old-guard GOP die off before he takes over, while coasting on not taking responsibility for any of their bigger fuckups. It’s brilliant, and he’s going to be a powerhouse once he takes over, because he’s got a way of convincing people that he’s going to be their savior when Keith knows deep down that all he’s going to do is sell them snake oil and saddle them with dying industries and failing schools. If Keith could talk as well as Lotor, he’d be president by now, and maybe his voters would know exactly what he’s all about instead of looking at him like he’s crazy.

Keith has no idea how he got elected here, because half the time it feels like he’s an imposter walking around Capitol Hill in his dad’s shoes, making decisions about things he’s not even qualified to talk about. But apparently somebody has faith in him. At the first full caucus, Shiro looks right at him and says,

“Senator Kogane, you’re going to be in Finance.”

“Finance?” Keith can hear his heart thundering in his ears. He thinks he’s going to faint.

Shiro nods. “Finance. Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions and Family Policy.”

Holy _shit_. This is Keith’s _dream_ subcommittee. This is the entire basis of his platform. This is literally what he campaigned for. Finance, fuck, Finance is one of the most important committees in the Senate, that’s the committee that created Social Security and the New Deal and the fucking Bonus Bill, it’s literally everything he stands for and everything he wants to work on and he should have never gotten a committee assignment this plum as a freshman senator, he thought he’d have to fuck around in Agriculture or Small Business or something else that he doesn’t really specialize in until he finally worked his way up to a powerful committee. He looks at Shiro and he knows everyone can see just how lost he is right on his face.

Shiro, bless his gay heart, just smiles at Keith. “You’ve been working for this your entire career. This is your passion, and I think you can really hone your skills here and do some real good. We’ve got high hopes for you, so don’t let us down, okay?”

“I won’t,” Keith says earnestly, ignoring the side glares from other freshman senators who didn’t get their dream committee assignment. He can feel their judgment, their expectations, hanging on his shoulders like anvils. “I promise.”

Shiro nods. “I know.”

* * *

So Keith’s busy. His secretary has a tough time even nailing him down for basic questions, and he starts working as soon as he hits the office at seven and doesn’t stop until he goes home at eight. Griffin takes pictures of him everywhere and posts them so his constituents can see that he didn’t forget about them when he went to Washington. He’s very, very, busy.

Except when it’s Saturday night, and he kinda wants to go out and get a drink.

He’s not a people person, that much is obvious. But back home, he had his friends from childhood, he had people from high school and nerds from college and grad school. He even had a couple of dates, whenever he managed to get a voice and find a guy willing to put up with how much he worked. Here in Washington, he’s got almost nobody – he’s met hundreds of people but they all _want_ something from him. He could ask his staff to go out with him, but they’d end up getting drunk and talking policy, and Leifsdottir and Griffin would get into a massive fight about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the worst president named Andrew (Leifsdottir says Johnson, Griffin says Jackson) while Rizavi and Kinkade do their weird sexual-tension-hate-fuck thing they’ve been dancing around for the past five years. And Keith’s not really in the mood to sit there and drink beer and feel lonely in a room full of people.

So he goes to work. At ten o’clock on a Saturday night.

He parks his car on the Senate side of the Capitol and walks up in the quiet dark to the side door. He’s in his feelings, like Rizavi would say, and all he wants to do is sit in his office and pour through research and feel sorry for himself. He’s done this before and every time, the police officers have been standing silently outside, shivering in their jackets. They recognize him instantly and let him in, sometimes teasing him about working too hard.

Today, though, it goes a little bit differently.

“Dude, please. Pretty please, pretty pretty supermodel please, I – I promise I’m staff, here’s my badge, normally I’m wearing red, normally you don’t look twice at me – are you night shift? You’re not normally here, I get it, okay, I’m one of the tour guides, one of the ones who walks around and talks in a microphone and keeps the eighth graders from being complete assholes to you? And I need to get in so will you _pleeeeease_ let me past the scary doors that normally aren’t locked?”

“The badge just says ‘Architect of the Capitol,’ I don’t think you need access to the building – “

“I do work for the Architect of the Capitol! I can tell you everything _about_ the Capitol, the cornerstone was laid in September of 1793, George Washington was wearing a really cool apron when he did it and they poured wine on the cornerstone, which, mood – “

“_Lance?_”

In the quiet yellow light from the lamp, two faces turn to swivel at Keith – Lance and a baby-faced young cop with a black balaclava on even though it’s March and the night’s really not that cold. Lance lets out an overly loud laugh, while the cop looks blankly at him like he has no idea what’s happening.

“Oh my God, sir, your timing is amazing. Officer, Senator Kogane can vouch for me, you can vouch for me, right?”

“Why do you need to get into the Capitol at ten o’clock at night?” Keith asks. His voice is amused. He’s not sure how that happened. He’s not sure how he went from being ready to sulk and self-pity all night to smiling and teasing.

“I left my keys in my locker,” Lance says. “And I can’t get into my apartment without them so if you don’t let me in I’ll have to sleep here, Officer, right next to these beautiful bronze doors, which were added when the Olmstead Terrace was added to the building in the 1880s to create a better platform for the Walter renovations – “

“Senator,” the Officer says, and hey look, he finally figured out who Keith was. “Do you need to get inside?”

“Yes, I do, and so does my friend. He is a tour guide and he can come with me.”

Lance cheers, and it echoes through the silent Capitol hill. The officer actually jumps. “Best Senator ever!”

“Are you a voter in the state of Texas?” Keith asks as the officer opens the doors and ushers them inside. Lance makes to go through the metal detector, but the officers inside take one look at Keith and wave them both through. “Because I would certainly appreciate your vote.”

“I live in DC, I don’t have a vote,” Lance says, totally distracted. “Dude, they’ve never let me through that easily, is that what happens _every time_ you come here?”

“Yes,” Keith says slowly. “I’m a Senator.”

“Yeah, I know, but _still. _Perks of the job!”

The hallways are beautiful and silent, with darkened arching ceilings and tiny paintings of famous Americans popping up in between scrolling depictions of birds and flowers. Lance hits the elevator button to go down, and when the doors open, Keith follows.

“Seriously, thank you,” Lance says. In the new warmth, Keith can see his cheeks are flushed pink, and his hair is messy from where it pokes up over his coat. “I don’t know how long I would have stood out there.”

“Did you really forget your keys?”

“Yes. All of us went out drinking after work – visitor services, guides and assistants, I should clarify – and then we built a model Capitol out of PBR cans, it even had the Statue of Freedom on top, it was very historically accurate, and you know, maybe I’ve had a few too many? And maybe I shouldn’t be admitting that to a Senator, cause you’re kind of my boss? But, like, anyway, my keys are in my locker and if the super has to let me in _again_ I will potentially be homeless, so, yeah. Thanks.”

“You guys went out and made a model Capitol out of PBR cans?” Keith says with a huff of laughter. The elevator doors open into the deep bowels of the Capitol, a hundred years of retro-fitted HVAC technology snaking along the ceilings, and Lance laughs as he makes a turn, totally confident in his movements even though Keith can now see that he’s swaying slightly as he walks.

“Yeah,” Lance says fondly. “We were all really cool in high school, can’t you tell?”

“You really love this building,” Keith says.

“I really do. I love it so much. It’s my favorite place on earth. Don’t tell Disneyland.”

“Are you from here? Are you local?” Keith’s not tired at all. He just keeps following Lance like a puppy as they spiral through the building. Lance doesn’t seem fussed at all that he’s picked up a lost Senator; apparently he’s so used to walking and talking to people he falls into it naturally.

“No, I was born in Cuba,” he says, slowing down so he and Keith can walk side-by-side. “When we first immigrated here we moved to California. I did my master’s in Latin American history and the effects of American colonialism and thought I was gonna be a professor before I realized I talk _way_ too much, even for a professor, so I figured why not get paid to talk too much?” He gestures grandly to himself, like he’s wearing a red jacket and thus proving his point. He’s not, but Keith’s having too much fun to point it out to him.

“That’s awesome. Sounds like you found a job you love.”

“Oh yeah, wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve got plantar fasciitis from walking too much and my knees are shot but it’s the dream, right?” They’ve finally made their way to where Lance seems to be going; he comes upon a door with a keypad and enters a code.

“I’ve never been here before,” Keith says.

“You mean Senators don’t normally come down to the guide breakroom? Shocking! Tell the press!” Lance throws the door open. “Come on in, I’ll just be a minute.”

It’s so homey; there are couches, TV’s, tables with chairs for eating, microwaves and fridges in a small kitchen area. Most of the room is taken up by tons of lockers, and Keith gets a severe flashback to high school; many of them are elaborately decorated, kid’s drawings and pictures of family. There are more than a few George Washingtons and Capitol domes tacked up on lockers, lots of history puns. He can see a collector set of PEZ dispensers with the heads of lesser-known American presidents above the time clock. One TV has a label that says “CSPAN TV – NOT FOR WWE, CARL”. Keith has to suppress a snort.

He’s desperately curious to see Lance’s locker – what pictures does he have up? – but Lance comes hustling back out, tossing his keys in his hands before even a minute or two is up. “Well, now you have seen the single least-cool room in the Capitol,” Lance says with a smile. “The very historic break room. Many notable decisions made here that impacted the history of our country. Including the decision to play the State of the Union drinking game.”

“What’s the State of the Union drinking game?” Keith says instantly.

“I will literally lose my job if I tell you, so we’re gonna keep that one to ourselves.” Lance winks, and Keith’s heart skips a beat. Hoo boy. “So, uh, not that this hasn’t been awesome, but I definitely don’t want to keep you from your work, so – “

“What is the coolest room in the Capitol?” Keith says, desperately. “I mean. I’ve barely seen the actual building. Just the committee rooms and my office.”

Lance tilts his head. “You have time? You don’t have important senatorial things to do?”

“No, I’d love to see it,” Keith says. “If you don’t have anywhere to be,” he says belatedly. He should probably make at least a token effort not to impress this poor public servant into working off the clock. He thinks that’s illegal. He’s pretty sure it’s illegal. No, it’s definitely illegal.

But if Lance has something to do tonight, Keith might cry. This is the most genuine human interaction he’s had in _weeks_, and it tastes like cool fresh water after talking for hours.

Lance makes a decision before Keith even realizes he was debating anything. “Have you ever seen the pawprints from the demon cat?” He asks with a grin.

“No,” Keith says, and away they go.

The Capitol is a silent, dark tomb when they head upstairs, but Lance’s voice turns it into a playground. He takes them up by the old Supreme Court chamber and shows Keith the pawprints permanently in the stone floor (not from a demon cat, but from a regular cat who walked by when the concrete was still wet). They head down the House hallways and Lance shows him the expansion of America depicted in beautiful paintings on the ceiling. They visit the Bloody Steps, where Lance tells a loud and dramatic story of a Representative who was shot and killed by a reporter – “And his blood is still in the marble to this day!” Lance says, waggling his eyebrows and putting on a spooky voice that makes Keith laugh out loud.

This gets them caught by a patrolling Capitol police officer, who seemed stunned to find them both having a perfectly ordinary conversation in the middle of the night in a deserted hallway. His arrival ends up being fortuitous; there are lots of locked places that Keith and Lance can’t go on their own, but once Keith asks politely, suddenly a whole new world opens to them. Lance starts jumping up and down with excitement when the officer opens up what looks to Keith like a normal committee room, until Lance tells him that this is the room where they signed Marbury vs. Madison in 1803 – “The most important Supreme Court case in American history! Established judicial review! John Marshall _balling out!_” They walk upstairs and get to go on the House floor, and they take turns pressing the electronic voting buttons and giggling like little kids. They cross the hall and go onto the Senate floor, and Keith gets to be the tour guide for a change; he opens up the candy drawer, lets Lance take whatever he likes, shows him his desk and the sparse collection of pens and gum that he keeps in the drawer, takes him onto the rostrum and lets Lance call the Senate into order while glowing like a sunbeam as the officer looks one second away from a heart attack.

After that, the officer tells them he has to go back on post – probably doesn’t want them ruining any more historic rooms with their revelry, Keith thinks – and politely asks that they stick to places that don’t need a key. Lance is totally undeterred; he takes Keith down the gorgeous Senate corridors, telling a story of an Italian immigrant fleeing political unrest who came to America and spent the rest of his life painting the Capitol, talking with his voice and his hands and his heart. Keith can’t look away. His entire life he’s thought of this building as a symbol of corruption, of something to be fixed and fought against. In Lance’s eyes, however, the building changes; it becomes a symbol of how American can change, _has_ changed, for the better; how Americans are willing to redefine themselves, to scrap it all and start over again, a relentless pursuit of being the best country they can be, even if they have to keep trying until the end of time. Lance talks about the building like a parent talks about their child, like a soldier talks about their commanding officer, like a friend talks about their friend; the building is alive for him, always telling a story, always talking to him and everyone who walks in and telling them that they’re important and they matter. Even a kid from Cuba. Even a gay orphan from Texas.

Lance talks himself all the way back to the door that they entered through, and when Keith looks down at his watch he’s stunned to see it’s 1 am. Lance sees him looking and grimaces.

“I’m _so _sorry, I just talked you into the ground, didn’t I? That’s what my bosses always say, I’m always getting dinged for having the longest tours ever, I totally took up too much of your time and you were too polite to tell me to shut up, I’m sorry, sir – “

“It’s Keith,” he interrupts, because damn it, he just got Lance to stop calling him that. “And no, it’s okay.” He stops, means to leave it there, and then readjusts, because this is too important. “It’s not just okay, actually. It was amazing. This was – awesome. Like, amazing. Yeah. I – thank you.”

Christ, he’s a fucking _politician, _how come he can’t fucking talk? There are so many things he actually wants to say to Lance – _thank you; this was literally the highlight of my week; I was feeling so lonely and you were so nice to me; I haven’t felt so alive in weeks; you reminded me that there are things worth fighting for. _

But he has to nod, and smile, like an idiot. Lance, bless him, can fill any silence.

“The pleasure was all mine,” he says. “Let me know if you ever need anything, okay? Goodnight.”

And with one last, lingering look at Keith, he turns and starts to walk away.

And yeah, Lance walking away is one sight Keith does not like to see.

He runs out after him, putting a good distance between him and the police officers watching with sleepy interest. When Lance turns at the sound of footsteps, Keith blurts out,

“Did you maybe wanna go out sometime?”

Lance’s eyebrows rise up and keep on going, until Keith’s got an uninterrupted look at beautiful, bright blue eyes. “Oh, wow, you’re serious,” he says.

“Uh,” Keith says, cause that’s not really what you want someone to say.

“Holy shit,” Lance says. “Yes, yes, absolutely.”

“Oh,” Keith says. A stupid grin pushes itself onto his mouth. “I didn’t think far enough ahead, I didn’t think you’d say yes, I have no idea what to say,” he admits.

Wow. The rising young star of the Democratic Party, everyone. Can’t even string together an English sentence.

Fortunately, Lance just winks. “Don’t worry, I’ve got enough words for two people. We’ll figure it out.”

* * *

Washington Post, March 13th: _Republicans Push Ahead with ‘Plan for America’; CBO Warns of Damage to Middle and Working Classes_

Roll Call, March 22nd: _Shirogane: “We’re Still Fighting”; Urges Voters to Call Senators and Tell Them to Vote Against ‘Plan for America’_

Buzzfeed News, March 30th: _What Can the Dems Actually Do Against S-76? Not Much, Say Hill Insiders_

Politico, April 1st: _Senators Kogane, Holt and Garrett Leave Strategy Meeting Late; Insiders Say They Discussed ‘Plan for America’_

So it’s not like Keith has ever been ‘good’ at ‘relationships’ – he’s been chasing an impossible career since he was fifteen and it hasn’t left a lot of time for romance. If he’s completely honest with himself, he’s actually never had a real relationship. He’s had some one-night stands that turned into month-long flings, a couple of romantic dinners and maybe some snuggling. But inevitably he gets too caught up in work and misses a dinner reservation, or his boyfriend wants to go somewhere public and Keith can’t go because someone will take a pic of him kissing a boy and he’ll lose a thousand voters at a critical part of the campaign cycle, or Keith takes phone calls at midnight and the other guy gets fed up of always being second to Keith’s job. It’s only gotten worse since he got elected Senator; a part of him wonders if this thing with Lance is doomed from the start.

They take it slow, which is nice; they get dinner at a secluded café in Georgetown with Keith’s security detail outside in plainclothes. Lance comes over to Keith’s too-big row house on Capitol Hill and fills the empty rooms with laughter and homemade yucca fries. They sneak secret glances across the Rotunda when they see each other, and when Keith’s adopted parents come for a tour Keith requests Lance. They spend two hours together roaming the halls of the Capitol, Lance’s dynamic voice weaving stories of immigrant artists and feuding architects and the ghost of John Quincy Adams haunting the old Hall of the House. Keith’s not quite ready to formally introduce them to Lance – isn’t sure what he would call him anyway – and Lance doesn’t push. But later, when they’re curled up on the couch watching Spielberg’s _Amistad_, Lance takes a break from pointing out all the historical inaccuracies to say,

“I really liked your parents.”

And Keith feels so warm and gooey he’s pretty sure he could melt.

They have sex for the first time at Lance’s house. Keith’s never been there because Lance has three roommates and that’s three too many chances for someone to leak about a Senator dating a tour guide. But one weekend all three are miraculously absent, so Keith comes over with a six-pack to find a lovely but very cluttered row house in Columbia Heights. Keith’s libido has had enough of watching Lance parade around the Capitol in tight black pants without being able to touch him, so he spreads Lance out on his homemade quilt and rocks into him until they’re both gasping. Afterwards he doesn’t let Lance get up before swallowing his cock, choking a little because it’s been a while, okay? Lance scratches at his scalp and one time tugs his hair when Keith flicks his tongue against the underside and all in all it’s some of the best sex he’s ever had.

Something big is looming, though. The President’s utter complacency about the ‘Plan for America’ means S-76 is building steam. Allura hustles as hard as she can to keep it from leaving subcommittee, but no matter how many unattractive riders they tack on and how many time-wasting votes they schedule, it still passes into the Finance committee at large. That’s Keith’s committee, and he gets to flex his new Senator muscles by using every obstruction technique in the book, perfected by minority parties over the decades. He keeps them arguing one night for so long he almost misses Lance’s birthday, and he shows up with apology flowers at almost midnight.

“It’s okay,” Lance says over Keith’s bumbling apologies. He kisses Keith, hands sweeping over his cheekbones. “You’re fighting for America. My birthday can wait.”

Lance’s birthday will wait in vain. Keith knows this is just stalling for time, stalling for a shift in public opinion that won’t come. The bill will pass Finance, and then it’ll go to a floor vote, and he’s not sure all the missed birthdays in the world will be able to give them a win when all the odds are stacked against them.

* * *

Cherry blossom season comes to DC, and for three days the whole city is filled with fluffy, effervescent pink blossoms. It also fills with eighth graders on spring break, coming in clouds of Axe-scented B.O. For once Lance is the exhausted one who begs out of dates; he gives five or six tours a day, attempting to impart historical knowledge to kids who just want to look at memes. He moans like a porn star one night, but it’s because Keith’s giving him a foot rub, not a blow job.

On a cool evening in April, the Speaker of the House hosts a reception for police officers of America in honor of police week. Rizavi says Keith has to show his face so it doesn’t seem like Keith’s disdain for systemic police brutality is actually a hatred for individual police officers. Lance is one of the senior guides posted around to help with way-finding and crowd control, so every once in a while they look eyes. They can’t do more than that, because CSPAN is glued to Keith’s face, but it gives Keith moments of levity in an exhausting night.

Afterwards, Keith hangs out in the Senate reception room, chatting with Allura and Shiro, decompressing even though he’s so exhausted he can’t see straight. He feels a buzz against his thigh and pulls out his phone.

Lance: _I’m all clocked out if you’re still around._

Suddenly he’s not tired anymore.

“I gotta go,” he says, standing up at an embarrassing speed.

“What’s got you moving so fast?” Shiro says.

Allura gasps. “Are you on a _booty call?_”

These are two people who thirty seconds ago were discussing the intricacies of the US tax code in lawyerly detail. Now they’re teenagers asking about his sex life.

“No,” Keith mutters, beating a hasty retreat. Shiro and Allura whoop as he leaves. _Prepare to get really embarrassing drunk pics sold to Roll Call during midterms, you bastards_, he thinks.

Lance is waiting for him in a back Senate hallway, which is always their meeting location. He seems as exhausted as Keith is, shoulders slumped and eyes blinking like it’s a struggle to stay awake. When he sees Keith, he gives the sweetest, sleepiest smile.

“Hey,” he says, mumbling a little, and Keith can’t help his dorky grin.

“Hey,” he replies, giving Lance a kiss, reveling in the soft, lazy slip of tongue and teeth. They’re almost exactly the same height; it’s lovely, to look directly into someone’s eyes. “You look beat.”

Lance sighs. “Yeah, God. I love the overtime pay but Christ, it’s such a long day of standing and smiling and feeling like a bobblehead doll.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith says, and means it. “For what it’s worth, you did amazing.”

Lance snorts. “How did I do amazing? All I have to do is smile and nod, I’m not even doing any historical interpretation – shit, is that the President’s Room?”

His eyes are glued to an open door at the end of the hallway. Keith turns and frowns. “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“Oh my God,” Lance murmurs, creeping forward. “Can we go in? It’s never open.”

“I guess? Why isn’t it ever open?”

Lance rolls his eyes, the way he always does when he feels Keith’s art historical knowledge is lacking (which is always). “Because it’s the President’s Room,” he says slowly. “And how often does the President get to come to the Capitol?”

“Only when they're invited by Congress,” Keith says, because that one he knows.

“Exactly. Ergo, the President’s Room isn’t used much. I’ve never actually been inside.” Looking both ways down the deserted hallway like he’s gonna get in trouble, Lance tiptoes inside the doorway.

Inside, it’s like stepping into Versailles. Lance flicks the light and a gorgeous chandelier blinks to life, shedding light on a stunning room. Gold-gilded mirrors reflect rich red curtains, densely decorated blue carpet, low red couches and paintings of founding fathers, all staring Keith right in the eye. He looks up and gasps when he sees the ceiling, filled with allegorical paintings whose meanings are lost on Keith. Women holding scales and displaying banners of stars, men like Columbus and Ben Franklin painted in the corners, lending gravitas and history, and above it all George Washington himself looking down on all the glory. After all the drama and furor of the evening, this quiet, ornate room feels like a sanctuary, the closest thing that the Capitol will get to a church.

“Holy shit,” Lance breathes. His eyes are so wide, with the light from the chandelier reflecting in them like starlight. “Keith…I can’t even handle this…”

“It’s gorgeous,” Keith says faintly. It doesn’t feel like enough.

“This is our version of the Sistine Chapel,” Lance says. He walks all around the room, taking it all in, carefully keeping his hands to himself even though his fingers are twitching to touch. “I knew Brumidi was talented – he studied at the Academia di San Luca, of _course_ he’s talented - but I’ve never seen this room before, I’ve never seen how good he is at _colors_, my God, he’s like Raphael…”

Keith has no idea what he’s saying but he does recognize the awe in his voice. He _adores_ this Lance, when he’s a massive dork and doesn’t even try to hide it, when it shines out of him. He’s an encyclopedia of knowledge but he’s totally unpretentious about it; there’s no artifice, no showing-off. It makes him the ideal academic because he doesn’t want to prove how much he knows; he genuinely just wants to share his knowledge. Keith could listen to him talk about history all day.

Selfishly, he hopes Lance looks at him that way when he talks about politics. He hopes _someone _looks at him that way.

When Lance turns around there’s a helpless little grin on his mouth. “Keith, thank you so much for showing me this,” he says. “This means so much to me, I can’t even tell you.”

“My pleasure,” Keith says, and then, before he can stop himself, “This stuff is always more fun when I’m with you.”

Keith wants to snatch the words back – they feel like too much, too soon. But Lance gets a fierce, bright-eyed look on his face, and it’s only a moment before Keith has an armful of warm tour guide and Lance’s mouth seals hungrily over his.

Keith has enough wherewithal to reach his hand out and slam the door shut, still kissing Lance. The slam echoes loudly through the Capitol and he prays that everyone’s gone home because it doesn’t feel like he could stop if he tried. Lance is handsy, untucking Keith’s shirttails and running his hands over Keith’s stomach, releasing a moan into his mouth. He nudges his knee in between Keith’s legs and grins it up against Keith’s groin, and Keith grunts and humps down against his rapidly swelling erection.

“Fuck your suits,” Lance says on a growl, reaching nimble fingers up to strip Keith’s jacket off. “Fuck them, you look so good in them and I can’t do anything about it – “

“My suits?” Keith says, helping shrug it off his shoulders, as Lance’s fingers go to his buttons next.

“Yes your suits, your shoulders look so big in your suits, you look like Captain America. And your pants are so fucking tight on this ass – “

He reaches down and palms Keith’s ass to demonstrate, and that goes straight to Keith’s dick.

“Lance,” he says, because heat is pooling in the bottom of his stomach and there’s only one way this can end now. “Lance, Jesus – “

Lance starts stripping, desperate with it as he takes off his jacket. There’s nothing better than watching Lance come undone. He walks around the Capitol looking so put-together with his perfect tie and perfect jacket – Keith wants to see him wrecked, wants to see him blown apart and filthy. As Lance fumbles for his belt Keith skips the whole thing, shoves him hand into Lance’s boxers and _squeezes_, just this side of too rough. Lance gasps, low and broken, his knees buckling.

“Tell me,” Keith murmurs, pressing himself closer, stroking even though Lance is already fully hard. He seals his lips to the pulse point behind Lance’s ear and whispers, “Tell me what you want.”

“Your cock,” Lance says immediately. “I want your cock.”

“Such a slut,” Keith replies, and a shiver runs through Lance’s whole body. “Want me to bend you over right here where anyone can see. You’re so hot for it, you can’t even wait until we get home.”

Lance shakes his head, whining. Keith strips his jacket, his pants, his little black boxers, until Lance is naked and Keith’s almost fully clothed.

“What if we did this before your tour?” Keith says, watching Lance’s pupils dilate. “You’d see me in my suits, you couldn’t wait. You’re such a slut, you’d come find me. I’d bend you over and make you take it, make you scream for it, they’d hear you all over the Capitol. And then you’d have to give a tour while you _reek_ of me, when you can’t make eye contact with anyone because I’m _dripping_ out of you and _you love it_.”

Lance’s chest heaves with breath, fucking trembling, and Keith’s doesn’t know what’s come over him but it’s in his blood and he’s leaking in his pants and he’s going to wreck Lance until he can’t speak.

“Jacket,” Lance says, and it takes Keith a second. “Pocket.”

Keith lunges for the red jacket on the floor and digs around until he pulls out a condom and a little packet of lube. He pulls the condom on with no pretense, hissing at the feel of it on his sensitive cock. He stalks towards Lance, grabbing him by the hips and walking him back towards the desk in the middle of the room. Lance kisses him, eyes closed and blissful, but his knees hit the desk and he freezes.

“Not the desk!” he gasps. “Not the fucking desk, they signed the _1965 Voting Rights Act_ on that desk!”

“Thought that would turn your crank!”

“I can’t _defile history_ like that!”

“We’re already defiling history, Lance!”

“The couch,” he says, pivoting Keith and walking them to the couch. “I don’t care about the couch.”

Keith rolls his eyes but still pushes Lance down on the couch and climbs on top of him. It’s a little thing, barely enough room for both of them, so Keith grabs Lance’s leg and hooks it over his shoulder, giving him more room to stick one slicked-up finger inside Lance’s warm hole.

Lance bucks away at the sensation, just a bit too much too soon. Keith leans in, pushing Lance’s leg back until he’s almost doing the splits, whispers,

“That’s what you get for not giving me what I want.”

Lance whines. “I’m sorry, please, I need it, I need it.”

“Need what?”

“Your cock, _please_.”

Keith sticks in a second finger, starts scissoring him open. He’s _tight_; it’s been a while since they’ve gotten to do this. “What if I didn’t give you my cock?”

Lance’s eyes are huge. “What?”

“What if I didn’t? Just fingers, all night?”

Lance is already shaking his head. “No, no, please don’t.”

“What if you never got what you wanted? What if I just fingered you for hours, keeping you on the edge, and then you finally came and you never felt my cock inside of you?”

“Don’t, Keith,” Lance says. “Please, don’t do that, please.”

He’s up to three fingers now and Lance is warm and pulsing, clenching down on nothing. Keith has no idea what he’s saying, only that Lance looks like he’s going to shake apart.

“Well, lucky for you,” Keith says, and he switches his sticky hand to the underside of Lance’s knee. “I’m feeling generous tonight.”

He pushes himself in, steady, and listens to Lance moan at the sensation. He pauses to make sure Lance is still okay – because he’s comfortable with playing an asshole for dirty talk but doesn’t want to actually hurt him – and gives him a second to get used to the stretch. Lance’s chest heaves just slightly, his fingers clenched on Keith’s arms, and after a few moments Lance refocuses his eyes, looking up at Keith with an emotion that’s hard to identify.

Keith pulls out and pushes back in, still just as slowly, feeling the heat and drag of Lance, becoming aware once again of the gorgeous room, of the weight of history that’s heavy in these walls. He thrusts harder, with more purpose, holding Lance’s leg up with his fingers clenching on his skin. Lance pushes back, meeting his thrusts, little noises escaping from his mouth. He’s a goddamn champ, taking Keith so deeply, letting Keith set the pace but keeping up just fine. Keith’s had plenty of sex before but never anything like this, never with someone like this in a place like this, and when he opens his mouth to speak a very different set of words starts coming out.

“You’re amazing, you know that?” He says, and his voice is ragged with exertion and something else. “God, Lance, the way you look, the way you move – “

Lance doesn’t say anything, his mouth slightly open. His chest is flushed red and Keith wants to kiss it.

“You’re a rockstar,” he says, and proves it when he hitches Lance’s other leg up, almost folding him in half. Lance doesn’t even wince, and gets rewarded for it when Keith angles his hips up and finds _that_ spot. Lance arches his back, hissing. The chandelier lights catch on the sweat of his stomach, on the fine trail of hair that leads down to his beautiful, rock-hard cock.

“So beautiful,” Keith says, as he feels the heat build in his toes, his belly, the tips of his fingers. He’s going down fast and he has no real idea what he’s saying. “So beautiful, Lance. So much more beautiful than this whole pretty room.”

Lance’s eyes widen and Keith doesn’t even recognize it because he can feel his release spiking. He reaches a hand down and inelegantly fists Lance’s cock, stripping him hard and fast. Only a few moments later Lance’s cock bucks in his hand and he feels warm and slippery trickle through his fingers, and that’s his cue to let go and feel the wave crest.

When he comes down it feels like the painted ladies are staring down at him, judging him. George Washington looks weirdly disappointed, lips pursed together. Keith doesn’t know what he’s disappointed about and he doesn’t want to ask.

He also can’t read Lance’s face, not at first. But when he nudges his way onto the couch and tugs an arm around Lance, fitting their bodies together like two question marks, he catches a smile on Lance’s lips.

“That was amazing,” he whispers.

“We can’t stay,” Keith says, because he can’t quite process all that they’ve done tonight but he does know that.

“Few more minutes,” Lance says, and he can’t say no.

Lance presses a kiss to Keith’s knuckles, and it speaks volumes.

* * *

Reuters, May 14th: _Why You Should be Extremely Concerned about the ‘Plan for America’_

Wall Street Journal, May 29th: _Dems Lose Supreme Court Justice Battle: Why They Will Also Lose S-76_

New York Times, June 2nd: _Shirogane: “We’re Still in the Fight”_

Huffington Post, June 6th: _CBO: The ‘Plan for America’ is Very Bad for America and There’s Almost Nothing Anyone Can Do to Stop It_

If Keith were a better person, he would feel guilty about what he did with Lance as soon as it happened, or even before it happened. Unfortunately he’s still kind of an asshole, so it takes him a few days before the guilt sets in.

When it hits though, it hits hard. Keith zones out in an important hearing because he’s self-flagellating to an absurd degree. What was he _thinking_? He didn’t just sleep with a tour guide, he slept with a tour guide in one of the most historic rooms in the Capitol. _Martin Luther King Jr._ stood in that room, Jesus Christ.

It’s not just that. Keith looks up Lance’s position and is dismayed to find his suspicions true; the Architect of the Capitol, Lance’s division, is under the legislative branch. Which means Keith is technically Lance’s boss. Keith decides how much Lance gets paid, Keith could fire Lance if he wanted, Lance has to be deferential and call Keith ‘sir’ in public because Keith’s his _boss_. He slept with one of his subordinates. He doesn’t remember much of ethics training, but he knows if this came before a committee he would not look great.

The guilt eats him alive. He stops responding to Lance’s texts, ducks from his smiles when they lock eyes in the Rotunda. The weather’s gorgeous and Lance invites him over for barbecues and cookouts when his roommates are gone, and Keith comes up with excuses. Everything comes to a head one night when Keith comes home to find Lance sitting on his stoop.

“Lance,” he says dumbly, looking around his deserted street to make sure there’s no reporters. Lance winces at the motion, and Keith feels awful all over again. “How are you – it’s like ten pm, how long have you been sitting here?”

“Not long,” Lance says, and holds up his phone. CSPAN’s home screen is still up. “I came over when I saw you were out of session.”

“Ah,” Keith says, sticking his hands in his pockets. The crickets chirp in the silence and it ratchets up his anxiety. “What’s, ah. What’s up?”

Lance sighs and stands up, his bad tour guide knees cracking as he does. In the orange glow of the streetlights he looks terrible; his skin is blotchy and dry, his hair sticking up like he’s raked his fingers through it a couple hundred times. When he stands up he also sticks his hands in his pockets. Then he laughs, a short self-deprecating little thing.

“My sister said this was such a bad idea,” he says, not making eye contact. “But I just had to see if there was anything to be done.”

“About what?”

Lance quirks a smile, still not quite making eye contact. “You’re ghosting me, Keith. I just wanted to maybe see if I could save the ship. Make sure it wasn’t something I did. Something I could fix.”

“No,” Keith says immediately, and watches Lance’s face fall. “Shit, that’s not what I meant. No, it’s nothing you did.”

“So what is it?” Lance says. His voice makes clear that he doesn’t believe a word Keith’s saying.

Keith sighs, shifting from one foot to another. _You can’t be a coward_, he tells himself. _Not about this. It’s too important._

“I’m like your boss, Lance,” he starts, and then tries again. “No, I _am_ your boss, I sign your appropriations bills. And it’s untoward, and unethical, and we shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

Lance huffs. “You’re not my – “

“Yes,” Keith says, in a firm, slightly hysterical voice. “I am. Or I’ll look like one in front of an Ethics Committee Hearing. And I don’t want to lose my job and I don’t think you do either.”

“I won’t lose my job, Keith, would you just _listen_ – “

“I can’t mess this up,” Keith says, because even though he can’t see it he can still feel the dome of the Capitol looking down on him, watching him, warning him. “Not for anybody. Not for you. It’s more important than you.”

Lance steps back like he’s been stung and Keith feels like crying. Because as much as he meant what he said he didn’t mean it to sound like _that_, but it’s gone and he can’t get the words back now.

“Guess that’s how it is,” Lance mutters, that same tone of voice as every one of Keith’s last boyfriends. “See you around, then.”

He walks off with a miserable slump to his shoulders, and Keith wants to scream all sorts of nice things at him but he knows if he brings Lance back now he’ll never let him go again.

“For the record, sir,” Lance says, turning, and Keith flinches at the word ‘sir.’ “I never said I was more important. I would…I would _never_ say I was more important.”

He turns on his heel and walks off down the tree-lined Capitol Hill street, and Keith watches him go and thinks,

_That’s the problem. Right now it’s more important. But one day I think you could be._

* * *

The clear, delightful joy of DC spring gives way to the baking mugginess of a DC summer. Staffers come back from simple coffee runs with pit stains in their Brooks Brothers button-downs. Mosquitoes sting like they’re avenging their families. Keith’s AC breaks one weekend and he pulls the Senator card to get it fixed as soon as possible because he can’t bear it. Everyone is in a shitty mood.

Keith could point to any number of reasons why he’s pissed. He’s almost out of cards to play to keep S-76 in subcommittee, and Leifsdottir and Kinkade tells him it’s an airtight legislation that they can’t crack open. Someone from high school drags up a picture of Keith wasted at a party with a Flava-Flav clock on his neck and a bright pink margarita in hand. It’s not horrible by any means, but Keith does have to waste an entire press conference defending himself as the press make stories out of nothing. There’s an oil spill in California that puts a somber mood on the country and ignites a firestorm on the Senate floor as the fossil fuel debate heats up with vehemence. Any one of these things would be enough to make this summer hell; combined it’s a maelstrom of misery.

But if Keith’s honest, none of that stuff has him in a truly shit mood. He could handle all of those things. He has, many times before.

Without Lance, though, nothing seems okay.

It’s been so long since Keith’s been in a relationship that he forgot how comforting it is to just _have_ someone. Even if he couldn’t tell Lance the specifics of everything, he could still call him at the end of the day, or invite him over for dinner which would always end with Lance cooking something cause Keith’s useless in the kitchen. There was companionship, and humor, and joy.

Now Keith goes home to his empty apartment, and if he had a shit day he keeps it to himself, and he orders Chinese delivery and curses the day he decided to run for the United States Senate.

Keith’s colleagues notice – of course they notice, they all have advanced degrees and spend their days crafting complex pieces of legislation – and they politely give him a wide berth and lots of support. Hunk brings in tons of macadamia nut cookies, Allura makes pots of tea, Pidge goes on expletive-ridden tirades about the press and the security of their jobs and “Aren’t we allowed to have social lives? Aren’t we allowed to be people?” It makes him feel a little better.

Shiro allows him to be quiet. He never makes it a big deal that a grown-ass man and a _Senator_ is mourning a break-up. He’s very perceptive, with a fantastic grasp of when to offer advice and when to be silent. Keith spends long hours in his office, discussing legislation strategy and who to nominate for district judge and, occasionally, the sad state of Keith’s love life. Shiro is very intuitive about the whole thing, scarily intuitive, and one night Keith finds out why. Shiro’s chief of staff, Veronica – a beautiful woman with square glasses and a masters in Economics from Yale – comes out of her office with a container of Chinese takeaway, and behind her –

“Lance,” Keith says, totally startled, because it’s almost eleven at night and Lance is hanging out in the minority leader’s office and wearing soft dark jeans and a button-down with the sleeves rolled up, and he looks tired and flushed and so, so great.

“Hi, Keith,” Lance says, with no small measure of strain and exhaustion. He gives a weird half-smile to Keith and then turns to Veronica. “Dinner Sunday?”

“Yeah, that works.” They hug quickly and Keith’s stomach drops because oh God is Lance dating already?

The door is barely shut behind Lance before Keith blurts out, “How do you – I mean - ?”

Veronica raises one perfect eyebrow and then points to the name on her door.

_Veronica McClain, Chief of Staff_

“Oh,” Keith says, because how did he miss that?

Veronica opens her mouth, presumably to say something sassy, but Shiro delicately clears his throat and instead she just sighs and goes back to her office.

She doesn’t hold her tongue for long. She comes over a few days later to strategize with Rizavi on the latest healthcare bill and which lobbyists to get involved. She stops in his office to drop off some memos and just stares at him when she’s done.

“Can I help you?” Keith finally says. He’s a Senator but he feels like kowtowing in the face of her intense, dark eyes.

She doesn’t say anything for a minute. She cuts a fierce line in her tight black suit. She walked all the way from the Capitol to the Hart Office Building in four-inch heels.

“He did his research, you know,” she says. “You didn’t have to break it off.”

“I did,” he says miserably. “It’s unethical. I can’t date someone who works for me.”

He can’t help his flush as an unbidden image of Lance’s sweating, ecstatic face, pressed back against the couch in the President’s Room forces its way to his mind. He makes himself look Veronica in the eyes. _She’s his sister, she’s his sister, she’s his sister you fucking perv, stop thinking about him naked in front of his sister._

Veronica shakes her head. “You both love making yourself miserable,” she says, before heading out, shutting the door behind her with a click.

It sounds like an ending.

* * *

Roll Call, June 10th: _S-76, the Plan for America, Passes Finance Subcommittee on a 16-14 Partisan Vote_

Politico, June 14th: _Majority Leader Sendak Schedules Floor Vote on S-76 for Before July Recess_

New York Times, June 18th: _S-76 Will Be the First Win in an Aggressive Legislative Calendar Scheduled by Republicans_

Washington Post, June 22nd: _Minority Whip Altea: “It’s Not Over; Call Your Senators and Tell Them How Bad the Bill Is”_

Buzzfeed News, June 26th: _What Can Dems Do against Plan for America? Almost Nothing, Says Insider_

“But I don’t _want_ to.”

“You have to,” Rizavi says, not looking up from her computer.

“But it’s hot,” Keith tries.

“Astute observation. We do live in a swamp. Very good.”

“I have a meeting,” he tries.

“He doesn’t,” yells his secretary.

“You don’t,” Rizavi confirms, and Keith swears. “We’ve cleared your schedule for the next two hours. You’re going.”

“I hate talking to donors.”

Rizavi raises her head, pinning him with her eyes. “These aren’t just donors. These people gave you enough money to find a small army. These people are the reason you’re in office.”

“But – “

“Sir,” Rizavi says, which she only says when she’s about to completely ruin his life. “The Arusians are the wealthiest sponsors we have. They gave you money when you were a punkass state rep in Dallas too big for his britches. They see something in you that I honestly don’t understand, and they’re in town, and you are going to go with them on a tour of the Capitol Dome to express our appreciation or else Griffin will schedule you for two photoshoots a day for the rest of your miserable life.”

Griffin grins from across the office.

“How does that sound, sir?” She says, with her shark-toothed politics smile.

Keith’s shoulders slump. He knows when he’s outfoxed.

“That sounds fine,” he grumbles.

It can’t be that bad, he thinks, on the walk from the Hart building to the Capitol. It’s a couple hours out of the office, at least. A couple hours to not think about S-76 looming over them, a monster they can’t fight. The dome is beautiful, at least, getting to go all the way up to the top and look out. Keith appreciates the novelty that only members of Congress can authorize dome tours. And if he’s lucky, the guide will do all the talking and he won’t have to say much.

He freezes, making an intern behind him go ‘eep’ as she tries not to run into him. There’s a guide with them on the dome, that’s right. He forgot about that. But there’s like 70 guides. What are the odds that it’s Lance?

Keith should have known. This is Washington. The chances are very high.

“Hello sir,” Lance says when Keith arrives at the meeting point in the Capitol Crypt. He’s dressed down for this – no red blazer and no black tie, just his white button-down with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. He’s got a pair of aviators hanging on his breast pocket and his hair is tousled and Keith’s stomach clenches in want.

Keith wants to say, “Hello Lance,” since he feels the least he could do is acknowledge him by name. But at the last second he panics, because what if they figure it out because he clearly knows Lance? What if his familiarity is too obvious? So at the last moment he just nods and shakes Lance’s hand. Lance’s face falls for just a minute before he gets himself back, and Keith feels two inches tall.

He turns to the Arusians, who are a lovely little couple with their grandchildren. They’re smiley and starry-eyed and clearly so happy to be there, and he drags up what few social skills he has to shake their hands and give his best Senator smile.

Charming the Arusians distracts him from Lance, at least.

Lance takes over when they start climbing but he’s in total tour guide mode, shiny and funny and untouchable plastic. He gives the tour mainly to the kids, letting them touch the parts of the dome and telling stories about the construction of the dome during the Civil War. They climb up behind the sandstone walls, on steep staircases that lead to railings in the dome, looking down on the Rotunda. When they get to the Apotheosis painting, with the beautiful painted figures blown up massive in perfect detail, Lance takes great pleasure in showing the painting of Bellona, the goddess of war, kicking Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. The kids laugh and Lance turns to the adults and winks.

“Allegedly,” he says, very tongue in cheek. “Allegedly, it’s Jeff Davis.”

The Arusians laugh, and Keith wonders what Lance does when he gives dome tours to Republicans. He can picture Lance fake smiling through the whole thing, then coming home and ranting about it. “I had to pretend to like Christopher Columbus!” He’d moan, while Keith would nod and rub his feet. “That racist, genocidal, syphilis-carrying _fuck_ who captured my people! I had to say he was a _discoverer!_ He didn’t discover shit! He couldn’t tell his ass from a hole in the ground!”

“I know, babe,” Keith would say, and get him ice cream while they watch ‘West Wing.’

But that’s not them. Lance won’t text Keith at the end of a long day. Because Keith wanted what he couldn’t have.

When they finally mount the dome and walk outside on the little balcony underneath the statue, the Arusians gasp, and Keith feels his heart lift. It’s a gorgeous view from the top of the dome, with the mall stretching wide and green like the world’s prettiest ribbon, anchored by the Washington monument at the end. On either side, Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues branch off like spokes on a wheel, lined with the Smithsonian museums and all the government buildings and the glittering blue-gray of the Potomac River. Up here Washington looks calm, peaceful and collected. A city on a pedestal, a beacon for a new world order. They call it a swamp; up here it looks like a mandala, a beautiful spinning wheel, with the Capitol at the center.

The Arusians are in bliss, taking selfie after selfie. But Lance leans up against the wall with his face frowning and moody. He’s got his sunglasses on so Keith can’t see his eyes, but his arms are crossed and his shoulders slumped. For once his mask is off, and he looks so miserable that Keith can’t help but walk over.

“How are you?” He says, softly enough that the Arusians don’t hear.

Lance’s head jerks over, surprised to be addressed, but his face softens. “I’m okay,” he says easily, and Keith _hates_ the fakeness in his voice. “How about you?”

Keith shrugs. “Also okay.”

“I’m sorry it got out of subcommittee,” Lance says. Because of course he’s totally up to date on the status of the Plan for America.

Keith shrugs again. “We did what we could. Rule of the majority wins, and all that.”

“Damn our founders for believing in democracy,” Lance says wistfully, and Keith actually laughs. It feels weird on his face, but Lance grins back at him, and that’s totally worth it.

There’s a lot less for Lance to say on the walk down – they’ve already seen it, so the Arusians chat in the back while Keith and Lance lead the way back down all 366 stairs. They’re in companionable silence, surrounded by the bowels of history, all the hardware and bolts and massive ribbing that make up the underbelly of the dome. Keith doesn’t mind, actually, the uglier underside. It feels like the real Washington.

“You could filibuster,” Lance says out of nowhere.

Keith blinks himself out of his musings. “Huh?”

“When it goes to the floor,” Lance clarifies. His hands drum on his thighs, which is his nervous tell. There’s a thin sheen of sweat on his brow, because DC in June is a mess. “You could always filibuster.”

Keith burrows his brow. “What would a filibuster do? They have the votes to override it anyway.”

“A filibuster has never been about that,” Lance says with a head shake. “It’s the last tool of the minority party against the majority. When you take the floor and hold it for continuous, open-ended debate, you are taking a stand against what you find repugnant. You can stall, you can run down the clock, you can shift public opinion. You can do it just to do it. Huey Pierce Long filibustered for 15 hours against what he thought was unfair politicking of FDR and when he ran out of stuff to say he read recipes for potstickers. Fightin’ Bob La Follette talked for 18 hours against corrupt banks. Even if it passes, the filibuster holds people in thrall. It holds them in the palm of your hand.” Lance cups his hand and Keith can’t help but watch. “It’s about making a statement.”

“They’ve got enough for cloture,” Keith says, even though his heart is slamming. “They’ve got 60 votes, that’s what you need to end a filibuster.”

Lance shrugs, but his eyes are twinkling. “They have the votes now. Will they have the votes after someone’s been talking to 12 hours?”

Twelve hours, Christ. And that’s on the low end of the filibusters Lance has just named. Keith’s pretty sure filibusters can go on for 24 hours. There’s no time limit. And the Fourth of July recess is coming up…

Keith freezes, making one of the grandkids almost stumble behind him.

Lance turns with a frown.

“Lance,” Keith breathes. “You’re a genius.”

Lance looks confused for a second, then grins.

“Obviously.”

* * *

Keith _runs_ back to the Hart building.

“Shit,” Rizavi says when he bursts through the door. “Sir, what the hell – “

“Filibuster,” he chokes out, heaving for breath. “I want to filibuster.”

“They have the votes for cloture,” Kinkade says. “It’ll die on the floor and they’ll pass it.”

“I know,” he gasps. “That’s why I’m gonna do it on June 30th.”

He watches as this implication hits all of his staff at the same time.

“Call Shiro’s office,” Rizavi says, pointing at the secretary. “Call Altea. Call Holt. Where are my stupid interns? Get in here, goddamn it, call the entire Democratic party.” Phones trill to life, buttons dial furiously. “Liefsdottir, Kinkade, get me parliamentary procedure. Griffin, call every fucking journalist you know.”

He’s already on it, nodding at her from his phone.

“I need something to read,” Keith says.

“I’ll get you something to read,” she says with flaming eyes. “You get your ass back to the Capitol. Shiro will be waiting for you.”

He turns right back out and runs again.

* * *

“You absolute madman,” Pidge breathes.

They’re holed up in the Rayburn Room, which is a beautiful room on the House side with a terrifying picture of George Washington looking down on them. The doors are closed, windows shut. Shiro picked this room to keep the plans totally separate from the Senate Side, so as not to be overheard.

“Yep,” Keith says. The initial rush of crazywildpush is passed, leaving a low, buzzing adrenaline. Now they’re in a war council. They’re making war plans.

Allura leans back in her chair, hair up in a frizzy bun. It’s the least put together Keith’s ever seen her, but she’s never looked more fierce.

“So on June 30th, Republicans call a vote on S-76. They want to do it before the end of the legislative session, so they can all go to into July recess with a big legislative win. They aren’t expecting any opposition, so they expect a quick roll-call vote. Except Keith filibusters, holding them hostage from their vacation.”

“That’s the plan,” Keith says.

“How are you going to get the floor? Zarkon won’t recognize you, or any of us, from the chair,” Shiro points out.

“Zarkon won’t be in the chair,” Hunk says serenely.

“What?”

“June 30th happens to be the 15-year anniversary of my election to the Senate,” Hunk says, and this time there’s a confident tilt to his smile. “It’s been fifteen years since the special election that brought me to the Senate. I’m sure Zarkon will understand the formality, the ceremony, of letting me serve as President Pro Tempore in honor of my services. He’d never imagine that I’d do something as strategic as calling on members of my own party to begin a filibuster.”

“That’s brilliant,” Keith says, while Pidge and Allura whoop and cheer. “Oh, that’s amazing.”

“Wait,” Shiro says, and Keith hates him from bringing down the mood before he remembers that this is Shiro’s job. He didn’t get to be head of the Democratic Party by being reckless. “What happens when they call the vote and they have 60 votes for cloture? Won’t they want to rush it through in order to go into recess?”

“Of course they will,” Keith says. “But I’ll use all my language about repressing freedom of speech early. So if they cloture me at least they’ll look like assholes doing it.”

Shiro nods slowly. In this light the gray in his hair stands out starkly. “I don’t know how much this will really change, Keith,” he says. “They’ve got the votes.”

“It’s a bit of a fool’s errand, yes,” Allura says. “But we’ve got to try something. I won’t let this monstrosity of a bill go out without a fight. And this is the only plan on the table, so we might as well try.”

Shiro nodded once again.

“Alright,” he says, and Keith feels like he’s receiving an order from his commanding officer. He straightens up.

“Let’s give ‘em hell.”

* * *

June 30th dawns clear and bright. It’s a beautiful morning to go on vacation, and everyone on the Hill thinks so too. Staffers are distracted, reporters gossip, Senators wear their laziest suits. When Keith enters the Senate chamber, the viewing galleries are almost completely empty. Nobody expects anything to happen here.

The Democrats know differently. Keith has worn his best suit and his comfiest shoes and he’s vibrating with nerves. Veronica, Rizavi and Griffin hover around the back of the chamber, ready to spring into action. Pidge has worn her favorite green suit (she calls it ‘leprechaun blood’), Allura has her hair up, Shiro is silent in the back. Hunk is unusually serious as he makes his rounds on the floor, receiving congratulations on his anniversary. Nobody notices anything except Lotor, the majority whip. From his desk he watches the proceedings with a furrow in his brow. His eyes dart around like he’s running calculations. He’s always been too smart for the game, but it’s too late now. The clerk calls them to order, they read the pledge and the prayer, and Zarkon, the aging President Pro Temp, hands the gavel over to Hunk to a smattering of polite applause. They have a Democrat as President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

“Thank you, Senator Zarkon,” he says calmly. “It is an honor to stand before you, my colleagues, after serving the people of Hawaii for fifteen years. Thank you for the honor of the gavel and for fifteen years of advice, debate, counsel and friendship. May we continue for another fifteen years to serve the American people and never compromise on our beliefs.”

Lotor is definitely suspicious now – he’s watching Hunk like a hawk, a muscle in his jaw clenching. Keith’s adrenaline notches up.

Hunk taps the gavel and says, “Senate is brought to order. First item on the docket.”

“A vote to consider S-76,” says the reading clerk, down on the rostrum. “Senate will begin a roll call vote.”

Keith stands up and someone in the gallery gives a little gasp. “I would address the chair.”

Lotor realizes what’s about to happen and opens his mouth –

“The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas,” Hunk says with a grin.

Showtime.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Keith says. He stands up and clears his throat. _God, _he thinks, _I should’ve drank more water._ He’s not ready, not at all, but the whole Senate is staring at him and he’s got no choice but to dive in.

He thinks, briefly, of Lance.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate,” he begins. “I stand today to speak against S-76, the plan for America. This bill would do irreparable damage to our infrastructure, our schools, our hospitals, and the very fabric of our country. While my colleagues have referred to his bill as a way to bring America back to its days of prosperity, all this bill does is bring America back to the days of a cruel and heartless nation with no respect for anyone but the wealthiest and whitest of our citizens.”

Lotor furiously whispers to one of his colleagues, hands clenched by his sides. Ranveig, the dumbass other Senator from Texas, still looks confused, but other Republicans start to look shifty.

_Kiss your vacation goodbye, assholes_, Keith thinks.

“So today,” Keith continues, reading from his notes, “I will do my best to convince you – and the American people – of the atrocity of his bill, and my fervent belief that the bill should not pass through this body in this or any form. I will begin with second 1, paragraph 1, subsection a.”

At that, the cameras click so loudly they echo through the chamber. Keith looks up and gives one camera the best sly smile he can muster.

Let the filibuster begin.

Keith is not known for talking on the floor – he leaves that to Allura, who is a master at it – so he thinks he tops his own congressional record after ten minutes. After twenty minutes he hears one of the reporters say ‘filibuster’ for the first time, and after that the reporters multiply like rabbits. After one hour he’s made it through his objections to the first section of the bill, and he breathes and then starts on section 2. Whispers erupt on the floor and in the galleries.

Republicans who have caught on raise their hands to be recognized by the chair, but Hunk is in charge of the gavel, and he doesn’t even look twice in their direction. It’s stone cold, and it gives Keith a thrill as he keeps droning on.

The rules are simple: don’t stop talking, and don’t sit down. Technically none of this is required – filibuster rules are a lot more lax these days, and he can filibuster without talking – but if he’s going to make a stand, he’s going to go old-school. His aides bring him papers to read and take away the old ones. They stayed up all night, compiling testimonies and constituent opinions and expert summaries, hours and hours of shit to say. And they’re still working, gathering new material, because this can go on all night. Republicans are furious, realizing their vacation plans will have to change, but the Democrats are stoic. Shiro and Allura did their job, and everyone knew this was coming. For once they’re in lockstep.

Keith starts getting lightheaded and croaky much sooner than he expected, so he slows down and pops a cough drop that he’s had stashed in his pocket. This is probably more words than he’s said all last year. At two hours in, he thinks he’s ready for a break. He looks to Allura, making deliberate eye contact, and she raises her hand immediately.

“Mr. President?”

“The chair recognizes the gentlelady from Connecticut.”

“I have a question for Mr. Kogane.”

“I yield for a question.”

Allura stands up, smoothing out her suit jacket, and clears her throat.

“Mr. Kogane, would it be unwise to say – that is, would it be factually incorrect – to say that S-76, the Plan for America, is a bill that, to the uneducated eye, appears to be beneficial to the American people, but upon a closer look and upon cutting through the pedantry and demagogy, is actually a heinous and vile attempt to – “

She continues on this vein for another twenty minutes, weaving herself threads of words that she ducks in and out of, barely saying anything except that S-76 sucks. It’s an old filibuster rule that ends up being a life-saver; if Keith yields the floor for anything but a question, then the Republicans can take over the floor and force a vote. But a question is allowed to go on forever without yielding the floor, so Allura talks and talks and talks while Keith catches his breath and drinks some water (but not too much, because there’s no bathroom breaks), and at the end when she looks questioningly at him, he just says, “Yes.”

And then it’s his turn again, and he launches back into it with the new papers that Rizavi brings. When he looks up at the galleries they’re suddenly packed, crammed full of people watching. Keith reads while flicking his eyes up to the galleries every few minutes or so. What he’s looking for, he has no idea.

One hour turns into two, and two turns into three. Keith’s fucking starving, but he keeps talking. He thought he’d run out of steam by now. But the truth is he hates this bill, hates it with a passion, and that bleeds out into his voice. He knows Griffin is blowing up Twitter, posting video after video of him talking and railing against this bill, telling the people of Texas, _He’s fighting for you. He’s fighting for all of us._

Zarkon and Sendak rage in the corner, but Lotor has calmed down, sitting calmly in his seat. He keeps making eye contact with Keith, and Keith gets the message. He looks to Pidge, who jumps out of her seat.

“Mr. President?”

“The chair recognizes the gentlelady from California.”

“I have a question.”

“I yield for a question,” Keith says.

Pidge immediately launches into a tirade that is so full of fury and rage that it would lose her the seat if she were anything but Californian. While she fills time, Lotor smoothly rises from his desk and walks over to Keith. The gallery cameras click like a flock of birds.

“Senator,” Lotor greets calmly.

Keith takes a tiny gulp of water, even though his throat screams for more. “Senator,” he replies, a little croakily.

“Tell me what you hope to accomplish,” Lotor says with no preamble. “Because it surely can’t be the defeat of the bill. Not when we have the cloture votes. It seems to me that all you want is to keep us from our wives and families on a national holiday.”

“Your families will understand that you have a duty to this country that’s bigger than them,” Keith replies, bristling at the heteronormative use of ‘wives.’ “And yes, you have cloture now. But how many votes will you have at the end of this? Prorok is from West Virginia, and coal subsidies are directly affected by section 2 of this bill. Acxa has some of the lowest school attendance in the country, and section 4 punishes low-attending schools by taking away their lunch subsidies. How will _your_ constituents feel when I point out that this bill makes it harder to get healthcare anywhere but big hospitals, and South Carolina’s rural areas depend on their local clinics for care? I haven’t even begun to tell the people of America what this bill does to them,” he says, and his voice is so hoarse it comes out as a growl, “and you better be prepared to give me what I want now, or face the people in November.”

Lotor narrows his eyes, tendons standing out in his neck. The cameras watch them, thirty unblinking Cyclops eyes. When Lotor wordlessly walks away, they follow him, and Keith allows himself a tiny smirk.

_Don’t mess with Texas_, he thinks.

Then he catches Pidge’s eye and clears his throat.

* * *

The leg cramps start at hour six. Keith plants a hand on his desk as his knees buckle, and he keeps talking even though spots swim before his eyes. God, he could pass out. After this, he’s not talking for a year.

Rizavi comes up with a new stack of papers: constituent testimonials about how much they’ll be affected by this bill that have been steadily pouring in during this filibuster. They’re his favorite part, a link to the world outside this Senate chamber. He takes a deep breath and picks up the first one, realizing that this one looks a little different.

(KEITH – DON’T READ THIS YET! LOOK UP!)

Keith does, and his heart skips a beat.

_Lance_ is in the gallery, looking right down at Keith. He’s beaming, grin shining out of all the nameless people in the gallery, and he clearly wants to wave his hand but can’t blow his cover. Keith stares at him with a flush growing on his face before he realizes he’s been silent for a bit and he has to start talking or he’s going to lose this filibuster. He jerks his gaze back down to the paper and starts reading.

“Senator Kogane is a hero,” he reads, stunned. This is Lance’s handwriting. “He is the only one willing to do what it takes to stop this evil bill. The Republican party has tried to paint this bill as a good thing, as a win for America; thanks to Senator Kogane, we know the truth. As a DC voter I don’t have a voice in a lot of national politics; but you can hear me now, and I want Senator Kogane and the entire Democratic Party to know that I stand with them. I urge the Republican Party to consider if they are still the party of Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, if they are a party of justice and equality, or if they are the party of oppression and cruelty and tyranny. Because historians are watching, and we will remember this day. Sincerely, A Citizen.”

Keith looks up to see Lance’s eyes glued to him, with all the fire and passion reignited that he’d snuffed out that night outside his house. He grins, and Lance grins back, and the cameras click and Griffin looks like he’s going to have a heart attack and this is all going to be written up in Roll Call and they might be in deep, deep shit.

But he’ll deal with all that when they win.

* * *

Lunchtime comes and goes. Dinnertime comes and goes. Keith’s hunger is a living thing, clawing at his bones. He snacks on peanuts and granola bars and other tiny things but it’s not enough. The people in the galleries have come and gone, back to work or families or the rest of their lives, and been replaced by new faces. Lance is still there, stalwart in the first row. The Democrats are still there, each of them taking a turn to talk. The Republicans are still there, held hostage by Hunk refusing to acknowledge them. Keith’s still there, with aching feet and a scratched throat and damp underarms and the whole country watching.

Nine hours in and there’s a shift. Griffin’s press blitz is working, and the news all day has been nothing but the filibuster. They asked voters to call and write to their Senators and to Keith, and he reads out their indignation about the bill. He also watches as other staffers run in, handing their Senators the latest indignant constituent reports, people all over the country calling and emailing and tweeting about this bill. Keith’s sure there’s support for the bill thrown in there, but he also sees Prorok and Acxa – both up for re-election this November – come up to Lotor to whisper furiously. Keith smiles and keeps talking, his lips chapped and back aching. Lotor has cloture, but only just. If he loses one vote and they call the roll, then cloture fails and Keith’s filibuster continues until he decides to drop it. The longest filibuster was 24 hours. Keith doesn’t want to break records today, but he fucking will.

They don’t call the roll. They’re too patient for that. Shiro sits like a statue from his seat next to the rostrum. Leifsdottir and Kinkade just ran out another huge sheaf of papers to read through. Keith locks eyes with Lotor and Sendak and picks up another piece of paper.

He can feel Lance’s smile from the galleries.

* * *

It’s eleven pm, and there are two Lotors staring at Keith.

He blinks. Nope, just one. And he’s making really, really direct eye contact.

Keith pauses, even though he’s pretty sure he’s in the middle of a sentence. He doesn’t know what the sentence was about. He swings wildly, looking for someone, but thankfully Shiro’s brain is still working, and he stands up and takes over with a question.

Lotor wastes no time in striding over to Keith, who sways where he stands. The cameras in the gallery swivel to them. Keith flicks his eyes up to see Lance lean forward over the gallery, and then focuses back on Lotor.

“How long can you keep this up, Senator?” He asks. His voice is silky smooth; Keith’s sounds like he’s been gargling with coal.

“All night,” he replies, even though he would almost rather die. But he’s come this far.

Lotor nods, very slowly. He pauses, long enough that Keith almost snaps at him to hurry up before he faints. Finally he says, very quietly,

“How would you like to end this?”

Keith takes a drink of water so he can gather his thoughts. “What did you have in mind?”

“Call it off,” Lotor says quickly. “Let’s table it until after recess. We can remove some clauses, renegotiate on parts that you find particularly heinous. Hold another vote when we’re all less exhausted. I’m willing to give you this win, in acknowledgement of your fortitude these last twelve hours.”

It is a win. It’s a huge fucking win. It’s more than he ever expected. A renegotiation? Actually getting rid of some of the worst parts of this bill? That’s a fucking miracle, that’s –

That’s unexpected. Keith’s brain recalculates. If Lotor is here, that means he’s lost cloture. So at least one person has defected. But if he just lost cloture, that doesn’t mean he would lose the vote – all he needs is a simple majority for that. If he’s here, trying to negotiate, that means –

He looks quickly to Allura and Pidge, hands bent together and whispering. As usual, they’re one step ahead of him, and they both shake their heads.

Don’t concede, they’re saying. Because hasn’t just lost the votes for cloture; he’s lost enough to lose _the bill_. He’s trying to recoup his losses, make Keith think he’s getting a big win. But Keith doesn’t have to settle for a revised bill. He can kill the whole motherfucker _right now_.

“No,” he says, and instead swivels to Hunk. “Mr. President?”

Hunk jumps a little but recovers quickly. “Yes, Senator.”

“I yield the floor.”

The gallery gasps, but Allura and Pidge are stony-faced. Lotor stalks to his desk, but Keith doesn’t watch him.

“The gentleman from Texas has yielded the floor,” Hunk says. “Then we will proceed to a vote on S-76. Clerk, please call the roll.”

Keith looks up at Lance and sees him grinning, because of course he’s figured out the strategy. Force a vote now, before the wavering Senators decide to waver back. Take advantage of every indecisive Senator, every angry phone call from their voters, every hour they’ve missed their flights home, and end this shit now.

The poor exhausted clerk finally gets to say, “On the matter of S-76, Mrs. Acxa?”

“Nay,” she says, and a thrill rises up Keith’s spine like lightning. That’s a defection. They’ve got a defection. Holy shit, are they going to win this?

“Ms. Altea?”

“Nay,” Allura says, loud and clear. She winks at Keith and he manages a smile.

Haggar, the longest-serving female Senator, defects after outcry from her state about funding for after-school programs. Prorok falls over rural healthcare. Lotor’s eye twitches and his face gets red as slowly a Republican stronghold crumbles brick by brick. Meanwhile, the Democratic party holds strong, voting as one. And suddenly they’re at the bottom of the alphabet, and Keith can’t feel his hunger or his fatigue or the pain in his feet because it’s almost fucking over –

“Mr. Zarkon,” the clerk reads.

“Yay,” he says, in his ancient old man voice, but it doesn’t matter, because –

“The yays are 46, the nays are 54. The bill is defeated.”

The gallery erupts in screams, and Keith feels genuine tears leak out of his eyes.

“And without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.” Hunk bangs the gavel, ending the debate and any hope of Republicans to revive the bill. Then Hunk ends the session and comes down from the rostrum to join in on the scrum of Democrats hugging and cheering and shaking hands with a dazed Keith.

He tears his eyes away to the gallery and finds the officers leading away the cheering crowd. _Fuck_, he thinks, _fuck, that’s right, any sort of political demonstrations aren’t allowed in the galleries, it’s a form of protest. _He scans his eyes furiously over the gallery and finally finds Lance, who’s not even looking at the officer who’s leading him away to get ticketed and fined for protesting at the Capitol. He locks eyes with Keith and cheers as loud as he can, setting off another wave of cheers from the gallery. The officer quickly pushes them out the door and Keith’s heart feels full to bursting because this is all because of Lance.

“How are you feeling?” Shiro asks through the cacophonous Senate floor.

_Like I want to chase after a boy. Miserable. Exhilarated. Proud. Horny._

“Hungry,” he says, and laughter rings out at the US Capitol.

* * *

Later, in the wee hours of the morning, Keith feels more like a human. He had the most delicious meal of his life: Lunchables and a can of Coke from the Hart vending machine. He pissed for thirty straight seconds. He sat down on a couch, put his smelly, achy feet up and almost died from relief. CNN on the office TV trumpets the victory and his whole staff is wasted. He hasn’t seen Rizavi or Kinkade in twenty minutes and the door to the supply closet is suspiciously locked. Keith has nothing to say except _Get it._

But he’s not really feeling it. He just won the biggest legislative victory of his career and the New York Times is already calling him ‘the most influential freshman Senator since Henry Clay,’ but he wants to go home and sleep for twenty hours and then wake up and have scotch for breakfast, because Texas. So without really saying anything to anyone, he slips out and heads down the hall.

Halfway to the parking lot he remembers that he parked his car at the Capitol that the morning out of some misplaced idea that he’d get someone to drive it home at night. But the walk is nice, the air thick with humidity and promise. After all the furor of the day the grounds are lovely and deserted, just a few Capitol police officers standing under streetlights and keeping an eye on the shadowed tree-lined grounds. Keith strolls through the brick paths between hundreds of years of history, all alone with just his thoughts and his aching legs.

And the lone figure pacing by the Senate door.

Keith freezes, because his first instinct is gunman (thanks for killing that bill about gun control, Lotor). But he takes a few steps closer and realizes that walk is actually familiar. He’s seen it pacing around the Rotunda a thousand times.

He speeds up on his exhausted feet.

“Lance!”

The figure jumps up and Keith is finally close enough that the glow from the Rotunda lights up his face. Lance looks at Keith and a thousand-watt smile takes over his face.

“Oh my God, what are you doing here?”

Lance grins, and it’s shaky and wild. “Honestly? Waiting to see if you’d come out those doors. Which is completely nuts. I’ve had to show my badge to five different officers so they don’t boot me out for stalking. They maybe should boot me anyway but that’s beside the point – “

“Lance,” Keith says, because he remembered something in the middle of that rant. “How are you out? You were protesting in the galleries, that’s supposed to be at least a ticket and a fine.”

Lance smiles again, but this time it’s slow. “So I probably shouldn’t admit this to you, because it’s definitely a violation of _a lot _of federal codes, but I didn’t get a ticket.”

“How?”

His teeth flash white in the lamps. “I know the cop, so he let me go.”

And he winks, and Keith laughs, and has no choice but to kiss him.

It’s just as electric as the first time, and Lance immediately fits his hands to the small of Keith’s back to pull him even closer. And Keith is exhausted and dazed and deliriously happy, so it takes him a minute before he remembers himself and pulls away.

“Lance,” he says, and he can _hear_ how heartbroken he is in his own voice, “we can’t – “

“Shut up,” Lance says, and then his eyes go wide. “Uh, I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did,” Keith responds immediately.

“Alright, yes I did. Keith, we _can_, okay? I checked.”

“What do you mean, ‘you checked?’”

“Okay so _I_ didn’t check, but Veronica did! She checked with Ethics.”

Keith’s heart stops. “_Veronica checked with Ethics? _Ethics fucking _knows?_”

“No! I’m not a dumbass! We phrased it perfectly, we crafted it over hours, she pretended it was for some other investigation Shiro’s doing. We asked about the ethics of all sorts of relationships and one of them was a tour guide and a member of Congress.”

Keith’s heart starts up again and starts beating suspiciously fast. “And?”

“And it’s okay,” Lance says softly. “I’m not your direct subordinate, I’m not a member of your team. You can’t date Rizavi or Griffin, but I’m a couple steps removed, so it’s okay. Ethics said there would be nothing untoward about a relationship between visitor services and members of Congress, so long as I don’t use my insider access to you to get my friends and family special tours or anything like that.”

“So…we’re good?” Keith says, because he can’t believe it’s that easy, he just can’t.

“On the dating part, yeah. Abusing my familial connection to the minority leader’s chief of staff might be unethical on its own, but at least we’re fine on the kissing front.”

“So…” Keith says, as his heart ratchets up another notch. “You would still want to kiss me? Cause I was a dick to you for a while there.”

He’s terrified to say this, but Lance just shrugs. They’re still mostly intertwined, with Lance’s hands tucked in close at the small of his back. His fingers are electrifyingly close to the waistband of his pants. “I get it. You wanted to do the right thing. I like that about you. You care about your job and you want to do right by the people of America.”

“What about you?” He’s so close now, close enough to see every one of Lance’s eyelashes, the barest hint of the dome reflected in his big dark eyes.

“Well, I’m an American,” Lance whispers. “So technically you are serving me.”

“I live to serve,” Keith replies, and kisses him under the light of the Capitol.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies/not apologies to any Republicans who read this. All similarities to Senators living or dead is merely a coincidence. Filibuster responsibly and let me know what you thought.
> 
> Love, PVB


End file.
